Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Clara Dan - July 1, 1982

So a few guys from my hometown got together and organized a group to be taken home through Prague, to go back. And they found out we were the two of us here in Poland. So they came and got us. And that morning one of the guys, two lawyers got together and organized this group, two lawyers from back home from Romania, from my hometown. And, in fact, the morning when they came to pick us up, one of the guys says, "You know there is a rumor going that in Prague there are a few guys from Kolozsvár who are sent by the Romanian government to protect the displaced persons. So when we get to Prague we will try and look them up. And uh, they came to pick us up and we were about eighty or a hundred people that we are going home. And we start at Prague uh, railroad station, which is a tremendous, tremendous ???. But these two guys organized it. We had everything. Uh, what you ma call it, one of the train uh, part of the train just for us, nobody else. And we get into Prague railway station and it was oh, about getting dark already. And my sister, you know by that time we had a few pieces of clothing, and we found blankets and uh, shoes and golly I thought I'm the best dressed girl. Clean clothes. So we fixed each other on the floor for the night. And all of a sudden I hear my--our name. Because my maiden name was ???. And I hear somebody calling ??? Clara and Irene. And I said to my sister, "Somebody's calling our name." And my sister said, "You and your dreams." I said, "???. And I still hear our name." But it was dark already. And all of a sudden the door opens to the wagon and there stands my husband who was my fiancée before and another guy and he says, "Clara! Irene! ??? here." And when I heard his name I pass out. And all I know is that I woke up. When I woke up I was already in their place--in his place, which was the Czech consulate, which the Romanian--these Romanian guys lived in sent by the Romanian government. And they were the guys who were supposed to come to Celle to look for Displaced Persons.

Your husband was one of them.

One of them. But he would have never found my name, because he looked between the Romanians. But my sister put us between the Czechs because they were the first ones to get out and she really didn't care where she put our name as long as we can get out. So the rest of the group went further and we stayed with uh, with my husband. And then we went home and then I found out that my aunt is home and my two cousins and we went home and we got married and we came back to Munich, Germany because my husband wanted to come out to the States.